"It's still important to him all these 30 years later," Huntington says. "Lots of people at Harvard, if they didn't say so explicitly, implicitly thought of Henry as something of a war criminal." "I think he sensed that," he added.

Schelling says he thinks the Harvard faculty's opposition to the war impacted Kissinger's view of the University.

"I should think it couldn't help but

color his view of Harvard," he says.

"I think through his tenure as secretary of state and sometime afterward he would have felt that students and faculty, [even] some of his former colleagues, would have been quite hostile."

Unlike many prominent American leaders, Kissinger has never appeared at the Institute of Politics (IOP). His one contact with the University's primary forum for political discussion was a private luncheon at the personal behest of IOP Director Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator.

"People were surprised he was having lunch," says Catherine A. McLaughlin, the executive director of the IOP. "He's never come up here to do something for the Institute of Politics. I know that we've invited him and he's never been able to come."